Includes bibliographical references and index

Inventing the myth of racial equality -- Liars and thieves: Granville T. Woods and the process of invention -- Lewis H. Latimer and the politics of technological assimilationism -- Shelby J. Davidson: adding machines, institutional racism, and the Black Elite -- Back to the future: reassessing black inventors in the twenty-first century

"In this study, Rayvon Fouche examines the life and work of three African Americans: Granville Woods (1856-1910), an independent inventor; Lewis Latimer (1848-1928), a corporate engineer with General Electric; and Shelby Davidson (1868-1930), who worked in the U.S. Treasury Department. Detailing the difficulties and human frailties that make their achievements all the more impressive, Fouche explains how each man used invention for financial gain, as a claim on entering adversarial environments, and as a means to technical stature in a Jim Crow institutional setting."

"Describing how Woods, Latimer, and Davidson struggled to balance their complicated racial identities - as both black and white communities perceived them - with inventors' hopes of being judged solely on the content of their inventive work, Fouche provides a nuanced view of African American contributions to and relationships with technology during a period of rapid industrialization and mounting national attention to the inequities of a separate-but-equal social order."--Jacket

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